The Dragon of Casterly Rock
by monocrows
Summary: Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin. And on occasion, the coin lands on its side. Such is the story of Raemon the Halfdragon, bastard son of Aerys II, born amidst maneuvers and intrigue. Sent to be raised among lions at the heart of the West, he must learn pride from golden fools and flirt with family vices as he grows into a fearsome general between two dynasties.
1. THE KING

**I'd like to thank and dedicate this to my dear friend and local lurker _ucouldbx_ , who endured my rants about this long before it was clear that it would, indeed, be seeing daylight. Also my mother, because I wrangled something of a promise out of her to brush up on her English and read this. **

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**The Dragon of Casterly Rock**

* * *

 _The wealth of the Westerlands was matched, in ancient times, with the hunger of the Freehold of Valyria for precious metals, yet there seems no evidence that the dragonlords ever made contact with the lords of the Rock, Casterly or Lannister. **Septon Barth speculated on the matter, referring to a Valyrian text that has since been lost, suggesting that the Freehold's sorcerers foretold that the gold of Casterly Rock would destroy them.**_

 _—The Westerlands lore, The World of Ice and Fire_

THE KING

263 AC

Word was, the brat had left the womb as quiet as a whisper. Slipped out like a burglar in the night. The nurses had nigh misdeclared him stillborn. Yet the creature had drawn dry breath, doggedly, thief of good news from the very beginning. Now it was growing fatter and bigger by the day in a septa's cell, somewhere within the moldy old maze of Baelor's Sept. Its whore mother had been spared a place there as well, at the King's behest, lest someone thought to question his rectitude. She had survived the birthing and recovered within days, not like Rhaella, who had been pallid and feverish after Rhaegar for weeks. Peasant cows had more strength to them than the ladies of the court, for they bread that much more, like swine in a pigsty. For that they wore down more quickly, and only had a few enjoyable years in them.

Aerys had been impartial to the news, all of it. _Why not start waking your King every time you take a shit_ , he'd lashed out at the messenger daft enough to crowd in on him in the middle of the night. Then he'd rolled over and plunged back into a nettled sleep. Bloody imbeciles. As if the nipper's coming into existence had not been a silly enough reason to be roused from bed, he had to hear tales of the whore, too. He had not bothered enlisting an assassin to dispose of the wench, however he'd done little to conceal his hopes that the birthing would kill her. He had not aspired to stand a king who provided harlots with keeps and titles, yet he now faced the circumstance. It would be an unseemly thing, after all, to have some peasant bitch spew the King's blood from between her thighs.

At first he'd had no desire to visit. The deed was done and there was little that could be done to unmake it. Moreover, Aerys did not espy a great significance to it. His blood, diluted. Arbor Gold and hot piss, poured into a single cup. Not good enough for court, yet some folk would never think to know the difference.

The King saw no sound reason to bother tipping the cup over, either. Rhaegar was but an infant and knew not what a half-brother was, and Rhaella hid her shamed looks well. Well enough for court, at least. Aerys had a tight-lipped creature for a wife, and to that day he did not know if it was a good thing or a dangerous one.

Hence his surprise when that same wife of his climbed up to him one day in his rooms, dismissed the chambermaids at work on his silken robes, and inquired,

"Will you not visit him?"

Aerys ceased his work on fitting Dornish velvet to his shifts. He had no wish to face his wife nor acknowledge her presence any more than the necessary, so he spoke dismissively and gruffly to the city laid out before him as he resumed his fiddling.

"What does that have to do with you, woman? Not your whelp, not your worry. This whole matter is hardly a concern of yours. I'll well have you keep out of it, as is proper for a wife."

An ugly sort of silence gaped between them, but he could sense he had not heard the last from her. She could be tenacious, Rhaella, in a quiet, frustrating sort of way. He could not think of a single reason why she would suddenly grow an interest in his bastard bairn, yet he did not care enough to question her, nor did he lack the pride to continue to ignore her. So he matched her silence with his own, stubbornly, the way one ignored an insect circling a lantern just past their field of vision.

"The discommode I understand," the Queen breathed eventually, all softness wrapped 'round spun steel. "But truly, Aerys? Not once?"

"Watch it, woman," the King murmured into his intricate cloth. "It is not your place to question me, nor mine to indulge you." She'd do well not to embarrass him by letting her tongue run loose beyond these walls. She had confronted him about a mistress, once, and he reckoned the lesson still stuck with her, on the side of her jaw and on her thighs, her belly. "You of all people ought to know what happens when you're being clever with me. I will hear no more of this. Run along now, before I grow weary of you in earnest."

He watched his Queen's crowned head dip down to her shapeless collar in mechanical courtesy. All her hair slumped forward, down her high shoulders, in little hands and tongues of silver. He oftentimes had to remind himself she had his blood, and the thought would give him some concern, for he knew the lengths a Targaryen would go to for the sake of what they imagined important. Then again, Rhaella was but a woman. One of his kin, true, yet she posed only a pale reflection of himself. The gods had not meant for him to fear her. It was for her to fear him, aye, or else they would have fitted him into the gowns and planted the bulge between her thighs.

"As my husband wishes," the Queen spoke through pressed lips. And then, more quietly, "The court wonders, Aerys. If the Great Sept truly houses the King's own son, why would the King not see him? You have fathered a child. Children need their fathers to grow into sound men. I obviously have no control over your actions. But I would not mind it if you visited."

With that, his wife slid back, in a drag of ivory silk, between the creases of the half-open doors. The King spied her lose herself to shadows, pulling the doors and the implications of her words along with her.

After a time, Aerys recalled the maids and resumed dressing, but his wife's words stuck with him, oddly, like a small thorn that could almost not be there at all. What had gotten into her to make her question him so boldly?

 _The court wonders, Aerys._

That was folly. He had Rhaegar, who was healthy and strong, and he would soon press Rhaella for others. She should be grateful for his lack of interest in this lesser spawn, his wife, for otherwise her shame could be far greater.

Yet if she had come to warn him, the court must truly be restless. He would not appear weak-willed in front of their lot. Did they suspect he feared this child? No, that was beyond preposterous. He simply did not deem it of enough consequence to make the journey down to that peasant-infested, rotten sept.

The King did not well understand the abrupt agitation of his subjects. He was hardly the first monarch to mount a baseborn bitch, nor would he pledge this half-son to be his last.

 _I could go see him, if just to shut their mouths on the matter once and for all._ Yet was he not the King? Should he go to such lengths to secure the respect he was rightfully owed?

Just as Aerys was growing frustrated with the dubiety of the matter, the doors caved in with a yawn. In wandered the one creature whose unanticipated presence yet gave the King joy.

"His Highness the Prince, Your Grace," a guard announced uselessly. As if the King needed aid in recognizing his own offspring.

Prince Rhaegar was a moon's turn from his fourth year, yet he stood as tall as some seven-year-olds, if leaner. He had inherited the King's gold-silver hair, and his mother's deep blue pupils, one slightly purpler than the other. A sign of noble birth, the maesters claimed. He was a first son, the gods had wanted to give him all there was to give. Tales of his stormy birth, combined with the Prince's apparent comeliness, had inspired some half a dozen bards to sing songs of 'the spun-silver Prince' already, at court and on the streets, and the lyrics were proving quite infectious. The King would even catch the handmaids humming the gentle tune on occasion, in the Godswood or along the Maidenvault, or even as they worked.

 _From coolest of iron and fiery kites_

 _A dragon of gems and King's blood_

 _Make merry tonight and all nights_

 _For all that is silver is good_

 _Too sweetened a refrain_ , the King mused sometimes. A dragon should forge his reputation around greatness, strength, not the soft mewling of court bards and wandering minstrels.

"Father," the Prince had greeted politely just now. Just his voice betrayed the delicacy of his age, and the quick growth was pleasing to Aerys. _He'll have sons of his own not as far as a decade from now. My line shall be full and complete at last. The vultures will rue the day._

Today his boy wore a white kirtle with silver threads, belted with gold-plated rope. The sides of his hair were braided into a loose pale wreath. The three-headed dragon rested dormant at his chest, all but at odds with the softness spread out around it.

The boy's mother had been involved in his grooming a touch too long, Aerys decided. Made note to appoint him new tailors, and exile his wife from the dressing chambers.

"Should you not be at your lessons, small one? What brings you?"

"I want to see him, Father," his son spoke calmly.

The King frowned, but asked, "See him? Whom do you wish to see?"

"My brother. Half-brother."

Aerys' blood boiled. He had meant to keep the boy away from the matter, at least while he was considering what exactly to make of it. "Who spoke to you of that? Your mother?"

 _If the bitch has been filling his head with some idiocy, the Seven help me, I shall have that_ _flapping_ _tongue of hers torn out for good._

But the Prince shook his silvery head. "Everyone speaks of him, Father. It is like the whole court has met him save us. It is the duty of family to provide for each other. I would not hate a brother, even if he's not a Prince."

Aerys pursed his lips. He supposed it may not be such a bad thing that the boy knew, after all. It was not as though he would not sire the odd bastard himself, when he grew older. Yet if the boy plotted to have each one brought to court so, then the King felt bound by duty to teach him a lesson.

"Such a thing won't be. You think that what you offer is noble, but it is folly. A bastard is no family. You should not listen to the court so much. That flock will honk anything into significance. You're yet small, you don't have a way to understand."

The Prince lowered his eyes quietly. "Yes, Father. But at least you ought to go meet him. He is your son, after all. Maybe he will change your mind once you see him. I… I just don't want the court to be angry with us anymore."

The King's frown deepened.

"Quiet, you. Now out," he ordered, and his son knew enough sense to obey him, after a quick, stiff bow. "All of you useless hens out," Aerys snarled, waving off the handmaidens as well.

The King squinted darkly. Rubbed circles on his stubbled chin. Kicked into a restless pacing even as the fetching creatures excused themselves out of the room facing toward him, heads bowed and hands clasped meekly at their fronts. The King had no mind for them. His thoughts were racing to a murky standstill. _A boy of three is telling me about my court. What transgressions have I committed to deserve this?_

He considered calling in a hearing in the throne room. See tongues loosened on the matter. Get to the bottom of this ongoing madness. Hear why he, of all kings, had been cursed with a castle that lost its bearings at the thought of a silver-haired bastard.

A thought suddenly occurred to the King. _I do not know what that boy looks like._

Just like that, some of the mystery clicked into place. Could it be? Would the whore dare? His wife's words rang through his head, strange and obvious and igniting a frowning concern within him.

 _The court wonders, Aerys._

The Targaryen blood was strong, stronger still in him of all dragons. He barely had recollection of what the whore had been like, past that foreign accent and the wild bush of sunset curls which had framed more than her face. Yet no one spoke of silver hairs to him as they delivered news of the child's birthing.

Aerys swept his gilded goblet off of the table. It hit the floor with a loud, ringing _clang_ , taking the flask with it.

He was overtaken by the sudden, poignant belief that this whelp, whatever it was, was not of his making. Was that what Rhaella had come to warn him of, after all? Cryptic as ever, that woman.

He had to see it. There was no going around it now. He had to see for himself. And then he'd know. He'd be able to _smell_ it. A Targaryen would always smell _right_ to his own kind. _It is as good an excuse as any_ , the King supposed, _to show my court I will not be made a fool of, that I do not tremble at the shadow of some newborn brat._

The King finished dressing on his own, opting for a night-black velvet robe with an ermine collar and shiny gold fastenings, decorated with a crafted leather dragonwing on each shoulder. He headed to that afternoon's Small Council meeting guardless, for he had already disinvited all save the one man he trusted.

"You dismissed your council, Your Grace," said Tywin Lannister, not a question, yet the raised eyebrow connoted plenty of questioning in itself.

His friend had suddenly started standing taller than him a few years back, and Aerys never quite forgave him for it. Today he wore deep crimson leather that underscored the strength knighthood had put in his shoulders. A cloth-of-gold cape flanked the twin lions roaring mutely on each of his shoulder pads, held by the Hand's pin which reconciled the two ends at the center of his broad chest. Tywin had recently grown a proper beard as well, a property Aerys fought to conceal his envy of.

Aerys cleared his throat, still adjusting to this Tywin who could well be Lord of Casterly Rock this very moment and not a hair on him would need stand elsewise. "Drop the titles, Tywin, and the damn attitude with them. I have matters to discuss with you."

"Are you certain the rest of your council might not have any insight to contribute?" his friend pressed, pushing the King to grab for his wine.

"I don't need lickspittles and backstabbers for this," Aerys grumbled, sipping his Arbor Gold and muffling his words into the rim of his bronzed chalice.

It had not even been a full year since he'd appointed most of his current court, and already he could barely stand to be in their presence. Throwing the first few months of his reign into such rash delegations may have been a mistake. A slip of youth, so to speak. He'd been right to seek purgation from all that century-old, white-beard fug, but he swore to the gods some of the fresh blood was no better.

"Your liegemen require stability," Tywin was lecturing him, rational enough to madden a rock. "You already dismissed many of their fathers and uncles as early as last spring. As king, you know you cannot act on your personal sentiments."

Aerys grunted. Pondered whether he should make it a lawful thing for the King to clout his Hand daily. "Seven Hells. What are you, their wet nurse? Leave it be. If I'd known all it took to have you spewing wisdom like a sagged shrew was one real battle and a golden badge, I would have kept you clear of the Stepstones. Now, stop trying to reason me out of my damned mind, and come give me some real counsel."

Tywin Lannister did not flinch. "This is a Small Council meeting. I am the King's Hand. I am giving you some real counsel at this very moment. In case you choose to ignore it, I must ask how else I may serve you."

"Yes, yes…" The King beckoned impatiently for his Hand to approach the wide square granite table, upon which he rolled out an arm-long piece of freshly painted parchment. "Come here and tell me what you see."

"A map of Blackwater Bay," Tywin supplied after a fleeting sideway glance. Ever the map expert, his friend. From their youngest years he could always tell apart even the easternmost piles of rocks in Essos, while Aerys had struggled memorizing the Westerosi regions and their reigning houses. _But you could not tell tit from knee after nightfall, if I recall,_ the King thought in dark amusement.

Merry excitement coated Aerys' lips as he thirsted to explain his plans. "Aye, that and what else?"

Tywin Lannister gave him a gauging look. "I take it you are not looking to have a geographic discussion."

"Here," Aerys pointed impatiently, hooking an arm around his friend's red-collared neck, forcing his attention to where it was needed. "See, the south bank, naked as a maid on her wedding night."

"It is undeveloped, indeed," Tywin agreed. "Yet I would advise against an industrial construction at this stage. Wait for a few years until we have paid off your father and granduncle's debts before riding into new ones."

"I'm not speaking of _industrial constructions_ ," the King snickered in mockery. For all his strengths, Tywin could be too practical, too narrow-minded at times, lacking enough vision and grandeur in his strokes. Oh, Aerys could already imagine the look on his friend's face when he heard of his grand plan. "I speak of a _city_ , Tywin, a city of white marble and great open yards, with tower tops to drill through the very clouds, and shadows long enough to cast this stinking shithole we call capitol into darkness."

There was a considerable silence Aerys had not been looking forward to. His Hand gave no indication whatsoever of what he may be thinking, but under the King's loose grip, the red-clothed shoulders tensed into ridges, so that Aerys' palm rested along the grooves of clenched muscles. "And how would this great city come into existence?"

"Because, we're going to build it," Aerys exclaimed, patting his friend on the back in a fit of heated enthusiasm. "I have given the matter a great deal of thought. This new city of splendor is what I shall be remembered for, the king who saved his people from bathing in pigwash and swimming in shit. Now of course there remain some practicalities to account for, but what good is the Hand if he can't make good on the King's vision, am I right? Now, what do you say?"

Tywin had grown too quiet for the King's liking. His face still betrayed close to naught, but if his lips were pressed any tighter they'd need to be sewn together as one.

"In the present situation of unresolved debt, disgruntled lords and declining trade, I do not consider it an imperative need for the Crown to relocate a symbolic city which has stood for some three hundred years, serves as a main port and trade route with Essos, harbors half the realm's nobility, and contains a population equal to the entire North. Aside from these issues, the amount of resources and manpower required for such a large-scale venture would mean your current city is likely to run into bankruptcy no farther than one third into the construction of your new one. It is not wise, Aerys."

"The city reeks, Tywin," the King hollered, face filling with redness. Why were none of his ideas ever good enough for his friend? Why did he always need probe them like a maester looking for a bloody maidenhead? Perhaps some bit of him wanted Aerys' reign to fail, yes, out of jealousy or some self-destructive sort of madness. "I'm doing everyone a favor here."

"Nearly three centuries ago, your ancestor landed his dragon on this very spot—"

"So what if Aegon the Conqueror stuck a few pikes in the mud and called it a city? I spit on tradition! We need renovation, Tywin, not history lessons. I can build a better city than Aegon I. You don't think I can? You fool, just watch me! This pile of shit has long outlived its days. It is beyond repair, and every next breath I draw within it is an insult."

The King's shoulders shook with rightful rage. He had expected his Hand to somehow shrink under the battering force of his wrath, yet he seemed to stand as tall as ever. Aerys did not recall the last time that had irked him as much. "If it please Your Grace, we can arrange to have it _cleansed_."

Aerys' nostrils flared. He itched to slap the blasted calmness off his friend's face, grab him by the collar and hang him from the highest window of the Red Keep, see how well the great Tywin Lannister fared _then_. And why not? Was Aerys not the King, to do as he pleased?

"Not a good time to be clever, Tywin," Aerys hissed; made sure this time his friend understood the message behind the words. "Your _king_ demands detailed expense plans within the week."

Tywin's jaw clenched, yet he still spoke coolly, "The Master of Coin is commonly accountable for any occurring expense reports."

Qarlton Chelsted was the current Master of Coin. Had served as such for over a year, in fact, and yet Aerys had no opinion whatsoever on the man. "Fine. Give Chelsted the task, if you so wish it. Just be sure that you're willing to cast in your head with his work, for such will be the price of an error."

For a heartbeat, icy blue clashed with scalding purple, and then Tywin Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock and Hand of the King, inclined his golden head.

"Anything else, Your Grace?"

"Yes," the King jeered, pleased with his victory, even though the restraint on his Hand's face almost made it not feel like a victory at all. "One more matter."

If Aerys II Targaryen would not have himself played for a fool by his Hand, he sure would not have himself played for a fool by some tavern bitch either.

"Prepare a royal procession. I desire to pray in the Great Sept tomorrow."

 _And if the whore has been lying to me, the royal butcher shall be taking a prayer with me._

* * *

The journey to the sept turned more political than the King had anticipated. Although his reign had met its first full year recently, Aerys had been too preoccupied renovating the castle, his court, and so this outing would be one of the first opportunities for him to present himself directly to his small folk.

The King stood lean and prideful in dragonscale green leather and a blood-red velvet cape atop the Red Keep's entrance steps, as his heralds cried his descent onto the city. The dragon-emblazoned crown of Aegon IV rimmed his head, red gold, huge and heavy, each of its points a dragon head with gemstone eyes. Sir Gwayne Daunt and Sir Gerold Hightower of the Kingsguard stood poised like twin watchtowers at his sides, white cloaks scudding in the wind. Tywin had insisted for more guards, yet Owen Merryweather spoke to the King of the people's love, how well he'd earned it, and so Aerys had dismissed his Hand's apprehensiveness. Instead of Lord Lannister, the King had asked for Owen Merryweather and Sir Jon Darry of the Kingsguard to accompany him in the royal carriage. They were supportive of his plans to rebuild the city across Blackwater Bay, and made for more pleasant conversation than his Hand in recent times. The King considered placing them on the Small Council instead of a few stubborn oafs that only seemed to breathe the air at his table.

The King took in the streets as the procession cracked into motion. They swept past the gathered bystanders, which were few and straggling. As the royal tail made its way down Aegon's Hill, Aerys observed the people that flanked his path. There were not many at first, not as many as Lord Merryweather had spoken of, but that was perhaps due to the behindhand notice. Once more Aerys was struck by the filth, the brownness that ate away at the city, the same stench coming from mutts and men alike, a malodor which had not lessened since the last time he had toured the capitol.

Some children ran apace with the riders and threw fresh cabbage at the horses' hoofs. The King gasped in indignation and made to shout a fitting punishment, but was halted by Lord Merryweather's hand at his shoulder.

"These are garlands, Your Grace. They mean respect."

Aerys settled back into his goose down cushion, mulling over the strange custom.

He wondered if that bastard, if it were ever his, would throw pickings at the feet of some foreign king. _I ought to send him and his mother someplace remote and gods-forsaken, where I would not have to look at them and the realm would soon forget about their existence._ _Or perhaps to some kingless land, for the boy to conquer or burn to the ground._ A Targaryen would always wear crowns and spark fires, wherever the winds swept him.

But where? The Free Cities, perhaps. Tywin had mentioned a good relationship with the Magisters of Pentos. _Will not do_ , the King thought. _The brat is sure to find his way back here, as I lay on my deathbed, to make claims and undermine my succession._

Granted that it was his flesh and blood indeed awaiting him upon Visenya's Hill, of course. If not… well, Sir Darry did not ride with him for his wits.

The procession grew slow and meandering towards the foothills of the upland, as more common folk pooled in and piled up in drab rivers branching out to make way for the cavalcade. Although large in numbers, the crowd proved underwhelming. While they were far from the spitting mob which Aerys had sometimes glimpsed as a child under his granduncle, most of them seemed more taken with the plating of the carriage hoops than with their King, much to Aerys' frustration. A few roaming septons blessed him and a few beggars bargained for coppers, but on the overall, too few bowed their heads in respect when the royal carriage swept by, and too many went about their business before the last bannerman had galloped past them.

At one point, a man grumbled something about alms and the chant caught flame like dry leaves in an autumn heat. _Have I not done plenty?_ Aerys thought in annoyance. Whatever love Lord Merryweather had spoken of, it must have evaporated overnight, for the King was finding none of it today. _Is this how they thank me?_ The King shook his head, deeply annoyed by the entirety of his subjects. _I rule over ungrateful worms and two-faced shitheads._ He did not plan to be remembered as Aerys the Flogger, yet if this madness was not put a stop to soon he'd be forced to take action.

"This city reeks," Aerys complained, touching a perfumed cloth to his nostrils abstractedly.

"Rest assured, Your Grace, the Lord Hand is taking care of the matter," Lord Merryweather was quick to inform him.

The King perked up his ears like a listening rabbit. "Is he, now?"

"Why yes," Merryweather nodded eagerly. "Lord Lannister has sent word to assemble all cottars, washwomen and scullions, and the finest clerks to assess the cost of a cleansing since yesterday midday, after his talk with Your Grace. He has been hard at work to meet your wishes, as per usual."

Aerys' mouth twisted in anger. _Is that how it is, Tywin? Going over my head like I am some child to be pampered? Is that how it's going to be?_

"Stop the carriage," the King commanded.

Lord Merryweather blinked dully. "Your Grace?"

"I ordered you to stop it. This instant."

"But, we're not there yet, Your Grace."

The King was sick of doltishness. If he were not mad as a hornet over Tywin Lannister's latest bout of shrewishness, he'd miss his Hand's acuity terribly. "Useless old milksop…" the King gurgled sourly to himself, as he draped himself half out of the carriage and roared at the headmost riders, "Hold the horses! Hold them, I said!"

Servants and peasants alike whispered in bewilderment as the King rose to his feet, above Lord Merryweather, his above watchmen, above them all, cape opening and closing in a windy trail behind him like a true pair of dragon wings, and addressed the crowd with vigor:

"My friends! I hear your troubles! Word of it has not been far from my ears, and witnessing your plight first-hand has only opened my eyes wider to the trials of this good city. Fear not! Your king shall not be a mere observer to your misfortune. I shall build you a new, better city! A city of marble where there shall be opulent food and drink, and stench-free quarters for every man, woman and child. Though it would be wrong of me to seize all credit for this spearheading idea. You see my generous Hand has agreed to serve me, and you, in this venture. With his wits and my goodwill towards you, rest assured that you shall all see new homes within the decade!"

The cheering was somewhat slow at first, but then ardor caught no worse than the complaints from earlier, and soon enough the King became the target of merry applause and profound blessings.

 _Reason your way out of this one, Tywin_ , Aerys thought gleefully as he flung his cape sharply and marched up the hill, up the Sept's many-thousand steps, certain that whatever he found up there would be worth less than the trip's surprisingly prolific events.

* * *

The moment Aerys set foot into that wretched cell, he knew two things: the whelp was his, and he hated it all the more for it.

It was wholly imperfect, a broken reflection insulting his lineage. The short few moons of its existence had seen dirt grey hair with a tinge of rust lichen about its big head, more alike to that of street urchins and old men, with just one stripe of true gold-silver curled near its swelling forehead, as if to make the incongruity even more apparent. Down below, a pink little cock twitched, marking the rest of the babe as a coming threat for Prince Rhaegar's crown, for the King's lawful line. The only part of himself Aerys recognized in the child were the eyes, or one anyway. They were mismatched, one a different hue than his own, an odd pale green, the other purple and lively and drinking in all color that fell into it.

"What name does it go by?" the King wanted to know.

"We have not yet named him, Your Grace. His mother insisted we wait for your visit. She was sure you'd change your mind, come down here to meet the wee one. She would be here as well, yet she thought it best to let you be with the babe on your own."

 _Not as stupid as some whores, then,_ Aerys thought briefly. He eyed the child for the longest of times. _Blood is blood, and this one has some dragon in him after all._

"Raemon. Raemon, such is what you'll call him."

"An honorable name, Your Grace. Raemon, son of Aerys. Would you like to hold him?"

Then the septa was bringing the bundle into the King's reach, and he stood there; watched it approach, thinking.

Raemon, bastard of Aerys. The King's shame, is what they'd call him, at the most fortunate. At worst they'd scream his name in rally cries, when the bread was too sparse or the peasants sought to relieve themselves of this tax or that. He'd rip out every tongue that dared utter any such folly, of course, and he'd watch it with good grace. Still, he knew he would never forgive the boy for forcing this inconvenience upon him. Having to look twice behind his back, rummage through his court for bad seeds, knowing that the enemies beyond his reach were tempted, tempted to bare their teeth at the dragon, to try and seize what was his and his alone...

 _I'll never hear the end of it if I keep him._

No, the boy was a nuisance. As if Aerys did not have a bundle of those already, haunting his every step and surrounding him as devious as hanging ropes.

"Keep it off me, crone. Tell the whore she and her bastard are to leave the city within the week."

The grey-robed hag turned as pale as crusted seed. "But I thought Your Grace had promised them safe shelter until the next moon turn!"

"I've reconsidered. Do as I tell you unless you have a burning desire to join them."

"O-of course, my King. If I may, where should I tell her they are being sent to?"

"They'll be informed."

With that, the King spun on his heels, cloak looping behind him, certain that he would never need cast another glance at this misunderstanding of his. _He may be mine, but that does not mean I'll have him._

He was the King, after all. The King did as he pleased.

* * *

He went past his wife's chambers that night. Instead, he walked down the spiraling steps of Meagor's Holdfast, sped into the Maidenvault, and knocked thrice on an arched maple door. From within showed a golden head, framed by blades of sheeny fair hair. Aerys' gaze followed those yellow torrents spouting immodestly over the Myrish lace of a plain white shift, which started and ended altogether too tardily to conceal some of the lushness beneath. Aerys grinned lewdly, worries ebbing into the day passed, and took hold of Lady Joanna's face, well intending not to let go till the morrow.

* * *

"Very clever of your wife," Joanna was saying after he'd finished her a second time. "Pushing you to see the child, knowing you would hate it the instant your gaze fell upon it. Working you to banish it from court so delicately. She knows you well."

"You think she plotted this?" Aerys asked lazily, thoughts surging to fill in the easy silence his release had left in its wake. Women knew women, and he would not put it past his wife's wits, he decided, but he doubted that she'd have the nerve, or the bravery. No, Rhaella would not dare hatch something of the sort.

"I think _I_ 'd plan this. And more."

"Remind me not to get you with child, then," Aerys chuckled, thumbing a yet-pert nipple.

"I am reminding you not to consider your lady wife and myself too dissimilar. We women would do anything to protect what is ours."

Aerys' grin grew cynical. "What is yours, my fiery lioness? I fear I've already lain claim to your cunt."

Joanna's hands moved to caress him, yet her words were no gentle feather drag. "My pride. That is mine and mine alone. Ever jeopardize it, and I shall be forced to take action in defense of it."

The statement creased a frown between the King's eyebrows. "Where is this going, woman? You ought to speak more plainly to your King."

Her hand settled on his cheek. She indexed his chin sideways so he would look upon her face as she spoke, "I must leave you, Aerys. For good."

In the near-darkness, the King stared in perplexity at the shapely hints of his lover, fingers quickly spidering around her wrist, holding it there, securely. "What are you raving about? Speak sense."

"I am riding back west, lover," he heard her intone, wrist sliding free of his grip with an easy, far too easy flick. "Back to the Rock. To my new betrothed. You will not stop me, or I shall have to dare resist you. It could turn untoward, Aerys, for the both of us. Best let go softly, so that we may keep hold of the good memories…" Her hand sank low, lower still. Her mouth was warm at his ear, and held back no teeth whatsoever. "…and welcome them on lonely evenings."

"Whom are you spreading your legs for?" Aerys hissed, hoarsely, even as he shuddered from her touch. He was the King. He did not fancy himself an afterthought to be informed of impending events, nor a fling to be discarded in favor of a sweeter deal. "You ought to have asked my permission."

"Need I have? I'm hardly yours by any given law. I am my own woman, and so I do not ask your permission. Only your blessing. And to answer your question: I am to wed your very own Lord Hand, within the next two moons."

"Tywin?" the King managed. He could scarcely believe his ears. _Did not think to make mention of it, the bugger._ Black spite ran through the filter of his ribs, spilling into an uneven exhale.

 _When_ , Aerys wondered, and maliced, and wondered again. When had this happened under his very nose?

He'd noticed a few lingering looks between them, to be sure, but he had dubbed it a childhood fondness of sorts. Surely Joanna would not dare lust after another while in his fold… Then again, women were a treacherous lot, not to be trusted or depended on too much for anything other than surrendering their cunts at their closest convenience.

"Is he not of your kin?" the King inquired eventually, when his contempt had boiled down enough to let his hands pour him a glass of Dornish Red instead of smashing it into Lady Joanna's lovely skull, or better yet, fist the shards down Tywin's throat somewhere up the Tower of the Hand.

Joana stepped behind him, likely barefoot, for he did not hear her until he felt her chin settle near the neck of his robe. He felt her nakedness tailor itself to his back, and she laughed throatily into his skin, lipping away some of his anger.

"You are hardly one to judge. Tywin and I go a long way back. Besides, what better match for me is there? I shall be the Lady of Casterly Rock. I shall live and raise my children at the place where I grew up, and I never need give up my family name for the sake of marriage. Don't be sour, lover. He is your Hand. I reckon we would still see plenty of each other over court halls and grand feast tables." Her tone shed its playfulness. "Though I am warning you: looks is all I have for you from this day forward. Looks and that alone. He must never know of this, of us. We bury it, as deep as our ancestors. You shall not pursue me any further, if you ever had any affection in your heart for me."

"You know he'll fuck like an oaken log," Aerys warned scathingly, chuckling to himself. He felt her shrug through her arms, which rested twined 'round his midriff.

"A skill like any other. To be trained and adjusted to any particular taste."

The King turned halfway and pulled her the rest of the way between him and the beechen table; trapped her teats in a possessive, bruising grasp. He supposed despoiling something of Tywin's could prove to be an equally sweet flower to drink from.

Her hands found his cock and he grunted gruffly, curling over her with little grace. "I do not fancy him enjoying what is mine," Aerys growled.

Her palm beneath the thin layers of fabric strayed, in tune with the conversation, down his thigh, that much farther from the place where he desired it most. "See you brands to call me your possession?"

"Watch your tongue, woman, lest I show you just how many parts of you I am in possession of."

"Perhaps you will, one day. But something tells me ours is a book you might wish to revisit at a later date. Tonight is not the night you punish me. Tonight you bid farewell to me."

She sealed her lips to his, then, sweetly, more sweetly than his tastes extended, yet it was hardly the first time he found his tastes molded to her whims.

"I have not yet tired of you," Aerys admitted with some surprise. One of his longer-lived conquests, that one. "Any time you wear thin on patience for your stone-carved lord husband, any time you crave a proper dragon, you may come find me."

"I shan't," Lady Joanna stated without skipping a heartbeat. "But I might dream it, on occasion. So will you."

He might. He may even have Rhaella mount him on some nights, though he knew it displeased her, just to keep fresh the memory of the Lannister lass atop him.

It would be difficult imagining her curves rolling beneath his palms instead of his sister's, even though Rhaella was of a similar built. At times it seemed unfathomable to him her claims that she and the Queen were anything alike. Cool, silverstone Rhaella, whose every step was in painstaking calculation with the next two, who voiced little and dared do less. Rhaella was the intricacies of the court, the game for its stakes, while the Lannister wench was a less troubled presence of sorts, the game for its playfulness. She reminded him that there was yet an enjoyable side to playing these little games, a thing easily entombed in the day's tumult. Rhaella knew better, but oh, how this one's loose tongue only ever drew him to her, always bold but never ignorant, forever mounting that thinnest of lines where the end of his patience and the stir of his cock met.

"Well, then," Aerys bit out. "Why do you linger?"

The half-dark carved an arcane smile on her pale, ghostly face, yet she did not gloat in her victory over him like another might have, just pushed him back on the bed and shrugged off the blankets and climbed his manhood; seated herself as if he were a living throne made just for her. Allowing the golden snare of her hair to tingle their bare sides, she leaned over him to whisper, "My farewell to you."

* * *

The King had no desire to attend the Small Council meeting the following day, for he had tired of every vainglorious face on it, yet he knew his absence would hardly go unslandered. He felt particularly split on seeing Tywin, as he himself was not certain whether he would laugh in his Hand's face, or start to strangle the life from him.

"Let us get this over with quickly," the King declared as he strode into the council chamber, and all his servants rose as one to meet him. All save Tywin Lannister, who had already been on his feet and lingering suspiciously close to Aerys' seat at the head of the table. "You looking for your rocks there, Tywin?" Aerys snickered, and the table chuckled with him. "If only they were as grand as your damn golden Rock, you might not lose them so often." When his Hand did not see fit to respond, the King sank into his ornate chair heavily, head rested on the back of his hand. "What have we?" he opened the meeting with a wheeze, and resigned himself to his thoughts as his Masters-of-Something took turns wasting his time.

Wisdom Rossart spoke up at one time about a recent trove of unexploited wildfire left from the times of Jaeherys I, and that piqued the King's interest, until his Hand dulled the talk by requesting the substance be moved to a bare stone cell deep beneath the city, to be supervised and surrounded by stacks of sand at all times.

"What good is fire to me if I can't _burn_ things with it?" Aerys griped in irk, but did not think the matter important enough to suffer through Tywin Lannister's decree-like accounting, and soon let it go.

Eventually, Grand Maester Pycelle's ramblings on an upcoming maintenance of the royal fleet proved too much for the King's patience. He swatted the man into silence and turned to his Hand, wine-stained lips quirking into an expectant smirk.

"Tywin, my old friend, when shall I expect you to build me that city?"

If there was ever a quiet storm to take the form of a man, then Lord Tywin must be that man in the flesh. "I was informed of your promises."

" _Our_ promises, Tywin, or did you not hear?" Aerys cooed. Poured a glass of Dornish Red for himself and another for his friend. He slid the chalice across the table so that some of its contents spilled across the Lannister banner laid out in front of Lord Tywin. "I was generous enough to include you in my plans."

Tywin Lannister did not reach for the wine. "I have been brought in on the matter. I have also consulted Lord Qarlton Chelsted as you requested. Here are the early expense estimations, and the current numbers of the royal treasury to go with them." The bulging stack of paper was not slidden back, but rather delivered to the King by a circling cupbearer. It landed in near-offensive proximity to Aerys' face, and the wine flask clattered on its tray in discontent. "Lord Chelsted, would you care to explain in plain words to His Grace the prospect of his plan?"

Lord Chelsted fidgeted in his seat. "Your Grace, there simply aren't the funds."

Aerys' fist punished the flat of the table where it could not make work of his servants' noses. Why did they always need lecture him? This was not even about a great white city of marble anymore. Truth was the King'd had another idea during the night, a different construction up in the North which may prove far more beneficial to the realm and to his fame. But no, this was about _obedience_. Or, the lack thereof.

"I am King, make me the funds! Borrow, plead, negotiate, shit it for me if you must. Casterly Rock spits out gold like a brood mare yet I cannot afford a city? Foul joke!"

Tywin Lannister rose from his seat, then. Aerys resisted the urge to draw back in his own. "You will run this city into bankruptcy, Aerys, and perhaps the realm. It is not yet too late. This is a mistake of youth, one your people shall be willing to forgive. You vowed once to be a great leader. Is that how you turn into the greatest ruler in living history? By squandering taxes on passing thoughts and fairy tales?"

"A great king does not shy away from _boldness_ ," Aerys spat. Stuck his nose in his goblet. Fished for arguments at the bottom of it.

"A great king stops short of folly. Are you a great king? Prove it. Call off this misstep before it's marred your reign beyond repair."

The King was getting a headache. The Hand was giving the King a growing, splitting headache. This was hardly how a Small Council meeting ought to be going. Aerys threw his hands up, voice raised in indignation.

"What of the peasants, huh? They're not _that_ dense, you know, they'll remember what their King has promised them as early as the day before. You won't paint me the liar, Tywin, you hear me? You will not. I will not part with my people's love, not so soon after gaining it. You go out and tell them that their King fought long and hard in their interest, that he risked to make enemies of his sworn servants for the good of the realm, that it was the King's Hand or the Master of Coin or some other bugger that had the entire thing miscalculated. You do that and I'll get off the bloody thing."

Tywin nodded, slowly, but firmly. "I will."

The King chewed on an apple, feeling exhausted. It felt like an eternity since he'd first entered the room. "Inform me once it has been done. Now, if there remains nothing else for kingly consideration, I wish to be left alone for the afternoon."

"There is one more matter, Your Grace," Lord Tywin intoned. "I am to wed the Lady Joanna within two months. To follow the custom, we would like it to be done at Casterly Rock. I shall require a month's leave, a fortnight from now."

 _Ah,_ Aerys thought, _there it is._ His blood heated anew. He had given the matter some thought since his tryst with Lady Joanna, yet had only made up his mind upon seeing that damned arrogance on his friend's face once more. _The lion bares his intent._ The dragon would answer the same.

"Aye, that! I heard. Where are my manners? I did not congratulate you, as is _custom_. Here, let me hand you your wedding gift. How about a son? Not that I doubt your capacity to plant one in your wife, mind you, you're a smart man, I'm sure you'll manage it in due time, it's just that some men, we can't help ourselves, we do more than our duty. And why not? Consider it an honor, to shape the King's own blood under your supervision."

Tywin Lannister stood there, stone and steel, face as unreadable as a face might get. "You wish me to raise your bastard at Casterly Rock?"

"Need it spelled out for you, eh? S'pose you always were one for formalities. Very well then. See, I am your king, you are my most able servant. I have a bastard and you have an empty hearth. It makes sense. Tywin Lannister, lord-heir to Casterly Rock and Hand of the King, I command of you to serve as ward and fosterer to my bastard Raemon until he comes of age."

Lord Tywin, wisely, took his time answering. "I should think Your Grace would have preferred to keep his line within reach."

The King waved his hand dismissively. Made certain the entire room could hear his words, the meaning of them, as he spoke, "My _line_? Of course I'll keep it within reach. A bastard is no heir, Tywin. I know, I know, all children are darlings, and I would sooner keep the little rascal for myself, yet it would not make much sense, politically. I'm sure you understand the circumstance. Who better to raise this bundle that's unfit for my court? I am sad to part with the little one, but he is no real Targaryen, I fear the intricacies of the capitol would have been lost on him either way. I know the lion-court to be simpler, more straightforward. Plainer place for plainer children, aye? So then, shall we brand the matter done?"

Perhaps the longest silence the two of them had shared came to pass, at least since that time Aerys had suggested his Lannister friend had grown rather close to his then-squire.

"I shall bring the news to the Lady Joanna," Lord Tywin said, in the end, and then he said no more.

A sly grin licked its way on the King's face. "Aye, you do that; I've no doubt she will be pleased to take one part of her King home with her."

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:** **So I've been spinning this idea in my head for a bit now. OCs are hardly something I would have considered a year ago but right now, given how wildly popular these types of stories seem to be, I'm willing to push my creative limits a little bit. So, here goes.**

 **Past events and ages are book canon compliant. Raemon is born in the year 263 AC, one year after Aerys' coronation and Tywin's subsequent appointment as Hand. He is four years Rhaegar's junior, and three years Cersei and Jaime's senior. Also, p** **lease don't look for any hero stereotypes here. I am, well, to a point your casual antihero girl. Frankly speaking, I plan to write him as quite the Machiavellian prick, at times, but also as someone with firm personal beliefs and values. A villain with a code, if you will. I have tried to take his personality as far away from any of Aerys' children as possible, in that he is not _exactly_ mad (some), and definitely divorced from the concept of noble, he has not been born into a position of significant power, and his motivations are simply quite different. **

**Most characters will not go OOC, but you cannot expect the Lannister kids to grow up exactly the same with Raemon's influence in their lives. How and to what extent he is going to change them remains to be seen. Also, Rhaella is a subtle scheming bitch in this, which may or may not be OOC, but anyway you have been warned.**

 **Possible non-canon pairings may include Raemon/Cersei, Jaime/Catelyn, and Ned/Ashara. Canon pairings include Tywin/Joanna, Aerys/Rhaella, some one-sided Aerys/Joanna (I'm viewing this as canon, yes), Rhaegar/Lyanna, Rhaegar/Elia, and Petyr/Lysa. The rating stands for language, mostly, but I'm reserving the right to get into more graphic details later on, which of course will be indicated with an appropriate M-tag at the beginning of a chapter. Thank you for reading, or being about to, and let's get this show on the road, shall we?**


	2. LADY LANNISTER

_Only Lady Joanna truly knows the man beneath the armor, and all his smiles belong to her and her alone._

 _—Grand Maester Pycelle, reporting to the Citadel_

LADY LANNISTER

266 AC

Sharp twinges pulsed like war drums in her belly. Joanna glanced down at the swelling, draping a soothing palm over it. It hung so far ahead of her now, she feared the child might tumble out of her sooner than anticipated. _Just be still a little longer, my cub_ , Joanna thought, willing it to reach the inside of her womb. _It's not a long way for us now._

The appended weight put a newfound strain in her shoulders. Brought a thin sheen of sweat out of every little thing she set to do. Her wide dresses shimmied and jiggled as though an entire new Dance of Dragons were taking place within her. Joanna did not fancy herself a feeble woman, yet there was surely more stupidity than pride to be had in refusing to commit to the inner gardens for the few weeks that remained.

Her breath ran out of her more and more often. It happened one day as she walked the patio, and try she as may to conceal it with a yawn, it was Genna that strode beside her and not a scatterbrained maid. Joanna felt her cheek being cupped with a sort of sensibility only a fellow woman's touch might possess.

"Are you unwell, my dear?" her cousin inquired.

Very little escaped the shrewd eye of Lady Genna, and only a negligible part of the rest was left unremarked. Joanna let her gaze travel the length of her loose green silk gown. Allowed herself a tired, half-smiling sigh. "Honestly, Genna, sometimes I feel like I am carrying an entire pride down there."

Her cousin crowed cordially. Patted her own recently deflated front. "The Seven bless dear, haven't we all?"

Joanna smiled softly. Genna understood well. She had her own way of dealing with things, but she understood no worse for it.

Her cousin was a comely woman, slightly older than Joanna herself, with all of a Lannister's sharp looks and tongue. Married off to a son of Walder Frey's, one of many unexceptional ones, Lady Genna ruled over her husband with an iron fist. The servants had a mild fear of her, and even lord Tywin often found himself on the receiving end of his sister's quips. Perhaps it was the differences between them, perhaps the similarities. _They are as stubborn as any mule_ , Joanna thought humorously. _Good thing I am no less stubborn, or else I'd never manage them._

A huff escaped Joanna's throat as the midday sun suddenly turned scalding. A heavy lynx pelt swathed over her shoulders, one Tywin had personally skinned off a beast and tailored for her after a rare hunt. _I never knew the thing to be so heavy_ , Joanna thought as her chest labored for breath. Sometimes she craved nothing more than to shrug it off, other times she wished she'd roll farther up into it.

"I only wish it would decide which season it loathes," she muttered to her belly without venom, "so I might start dressing in accordance."

Genna gave a knowing grin. Hooked an arm through Joanna's own as they strolled the gardens, accepting greetings and curtsies from peppy servants. Handmaids and squires bowed, cheered, and wished her an easy bearing. Joanna nodded her gratitude, some genuine, some needed.

"Maester Creylen," she called after a passing cloud of clanking chains and grey wool robes.

The short, bony man skidded on the spot, dropping into a low, somewhat clumsy curtsey. "At your service, my good lady," the Maester wheezed.

"My husband is expected to journey home for the birthing of his first child," Joanna spoke. "I mean to oversee an inventory of our household supplies. If you are not busy, I would have you assist me and Lady Genna in organizing the festivities this afternoon."

"Certainly, I am happy to prepare a rundown of our accounts for your ladyship."

"Do consider that we have no wish to gorge our household into bankruptcy," Joanna jested softly. She already had half a mind to cover the expenses directly from the Lannister treasury. The longer that gold piled up there, the more it would tempt old Lord Tytos to reach for it when his mistress asked after her dues.

Warmth spilled in the Maester's voice as his old face folded in a knowing smile. "Very considerate, my lady."

"And do remind Sir Benedict over at the weaponry that we are still waiting on those twenty copper gauntlets. Oh, and please inform Lord Vylarr of the City Guard that the hunting party we dispatched last week is to rejoin the castle guard for my husband's return."

"At once, my lady."

Joanna rested a hand on a skeletal shoulder. "Your efforts are appreciated, Maester. That would be all."

"Seven blessings to you both, my ladies, and easy bearing to the Lady Joanna."

Her cousin grinned slyly as soon as they walked out of prying earshot. "Tywin should do well to appreciate you, my dear. The pair of you have good heads for numbers, and that's a rare, frightful thing. You could be every bit the Jaeherys and Alysanne the Rock thirsts for these days."

"Please, Genna," Joanna scolded, lest someone was near enough to hear them. "Lord Tytos is in perfectly good health. With some luck, he'll manage the Rock for many more years to come."

Lady Genna gave a short, low laughter, and muttered sourly, "Some luck that would be."

There was little fondness between Lord Tytos and his daughter, especially since the unfortunate marriage he'd struck for her. Well, Joanna could not say Lord Tytos ever gave anyone particular cause to respect him. _He is still Warden of the West. Tywin and I shall wait for our moment under the sun as patiently as we've waited for anything._

"What of your Emmon?" Joanna was quick to drive the subject away from Lord Tytos. "How are things at the Twins?"

Her cousin snorted and waved her hand dismissively. "Please. That entire household has less wit than two of us Lannisters, and I'm the better part of it. Let me tell you, if my Emmon was half as clever as I was, I'd have taken over the Twins by now, or at least booted that toad Walder back into his rightful century."

Joanna's throat worked a burlesque laughter, not unkind. "You would wed him in an instant if it would place you at the head of that toad castle of his."

Something in her belly shifted and Joanna doubled over. Her hands flew blindly to the source of the fickle cramping.

"Perhaps you ought to leave the accounting to me and that peculiarly charming, tiny bald man," Genna suggested quickly.

Joanna shook her head. "No. It is bad enough I cannot circle the castle. I need the work."

It was her lord husband Joanna needed in truth. _Tywin, hurry back._ Over the years she had learned to draw confidence and understanding from the uncultivated iron in his eyes, ease the taut metalwork in his cheekbones, spin that sternness of his into a shared affection. They had taken to marriage with mutual respect for each other, but overtime, they had also learned to love each other. _He could not be more different from Aerys_ , Joanna thought, gladly, grimly, and wished for the day she would not think of that at all.

Her husband's arrival was not due for another fortnight, and Joanna had rarely willed time to go faster. _You hurry home, husband. Come rescue me from my thoughts, even if you don't know all of them._

The distinct noises of young children interrupted their stroll. Joanna stiffened, and straightened. Rimmed a protective arm around her belly by some strange instinct.

 _Though some thoughts you do know of, don't you, Tywin? And flee from them to the capitol. You leave me here with them, to feed them, raise them, make them into something we can look at. But I fear, husband. I fear I do not know how._

Joanna did not allow her step to falter. She gave herself a neutral expression, whilst her nails carved slow furrows in the meat of her palm. _It's been years now. I cannot lose my nerve every time I happen upon him._

"There goes the little one," Genna remarked carefully.

 _Indeed._

The little half-dragon, three of age, sat clad in Lannister colors at the edge of an alcove near the fishpond. Beneath his dangling feet, two servant boys waded through the clear waters, trampling over reed and fish, splashing, yelling and pulling at each other.

"Pulling hair's for gals, hit him," the dragon-child was urging, a ribbon of dried meat hanging from his mouth as he chewed loudly. _He used to be such an ugly babe_ , Joanna thought. Looking at him now, she could not help but feel as though he were aging backwards, grey hairs slowly heating to a strange ash-red, the wrinkles of his first year pulled back from his round little face, those gangly limbs inevitably filling with meat.

The scuffling young things beneath the boy seemed eager to indulge him. The brawl exacerbated, and Joanna watched her beloved pond fill with dirt, mud, and blood-tinged saliva. It was hardly a fresh sight to behold. While Raemon wielded ink feathers and wooden swords as he was told, the boy appeared to enjoy passing sentences best of all.

"Little dragon and his improvised arenas again. Odd little hobby he's got there," Genna crooned eventually, when Joanna did not speak or move to break the squabbling boys apart. "Some would call it wayward."

Joanna shrugged into her pelts. "You know how children are. They'll turn the world upside down to find new games to play."

"Yes, yes, young minds are blessed fonts. Although I reckon we have a font here that's about to part with a stone. Or is that a conch? I can hardly tell with lads these days."

"Please, Genna, it is perfectly innocent play."

Her cousin fell silent, though it did not last. She gave a sigh, one of those long, horribly stretched sounds that dragged a wagon of ill-timed wisdom behind them. "You have no love for the runt. So be it, you owe him none. You don't need love to raise men, dear, that's what we bear daughters for. For boys you need but a firm hand, and all of a woman's patience."

Joanna stared at this boy who was not her son. A brew of guilt and fear battled inside her, as always.

 _Why did I not kill you, Raemon?_ _What held my hand?_

A quiet coldness slowly engulfed her, and she let it, even though she was certain the child had been sensing it recently. _I ought to stop him. Teach him better._ She thought of Aerys, of his hands roaming her flesh in the dark, unpermitted, unforbidden, unasking. She thought of the life that was mellow within her. In her mind's eye she saw herself drown in an ocean of bloodied linens. Thought of Tywin raising this tiny life by himself. Then she thought of a deathlike laughter, of old words hissed in the bizarre hours between wolf and nightingale, of foul blood crawling down a sacred stone, and her stomach turned.

 _The world will bring out the brute in him either way._

Joanna gathered her skirts, and walked on.

* * *

263 AC

She slid out of the King's arms in a slick, fluid twist. _In a nest of serpents, a lion must play the eel._ He grunted, stirred, but did not wake. _He's never stayed the night._ Men grew tenacious when they felt their possessions were about to be snatched away.

Joanna dared a glance over her shoulder.

Aerys Targaryen was an undeniably handsome man, and in his slumber, his face let fall most of its troubling shadows. On a good day, in fact, the King could be generous, charming and wholly forgiving. If she knew a bit less, Joanna would think herself a fool for seeking a way out. But one did not frequent in the King's close company without getting their fill of the bad days, too. Joanna had seen too much, pretended not to see too much. There was a strangeness to King's Landing—the longer you lingered, the more its charms went lost on you. It was no different with the man on its throne. Joanna had too much fear for the man Aerys was turning into, and too little respect. _If I stayed, I would not survive him. We would not survive each other._

She shuffled on a linen shift, anxious to fend off the cold and place more matter between herself and the King's grasping hands. She circled the heavy table and tipped the gilded flask over the throat of her chalice, only to find the contents running dry halfway. _No wonder he is not waking._

She glided a finger over the wood, to memorize, or perhaps to forget, and made for the window. In the nightly gloom, she took in the dozing city scattered down below. Roofed markets, warehouses and barns, timbered stables, kennels, mews and taverns, all piled on one another. For every two unlit buildings there stood the dim red lightings of a brothel at the peak of its busy hours. What was the saying? _Whores pray in the day and work in the night._ She wondered if Aerys ever took to brothels past twilight, before he was king. Now he had no need for it, of course, all a King needs is brought straight to him, but before that… She imagined Aerys bedding a dark-skinned, foreign woman on a bed overgrown with plush silk pillows and red linens. The image did not come to her with difficulty, but in her mind's eye, the wench's moans were more pained than pleasured, and the King's own growls echoed like the grunts of a wild boar.

Her gaze wandered back to the city, seeking a distraction from her thoughts. Across the low carpet of sheds and lodges, three monuments peaked higher than all the rest: the Sept of Baelor paled white as a gem, crowning Visenya's Hill; the Dragonpit, jagged and black with sot as it mounted the Hill of Rhaenys like the creatures of its namesake; and the Red Keep, Joanna imagined, tall and crimson and slender as the Maesters' chronicles painted its kings, covering the shore's rockiest slice, facing the onslaught of the high currents with aloof indifference.

In the distance, the city walls rose, high and strong and not at all reassuring for all the things they were supposed to be.

 _The city does reek—Aerys is not wrong there._

Joanna shifted, and stepped away from the carved handrail. Dragons mocked her from there, and from the wall-mounted silverstone, and from the very bed she had just left. She gathered her torn up gown and fumbled into it. Downed the rest of the wine, and blew the candles to maimed sticks. For an instant, she was tempted to glance at the King's sleeping shape once more.

Aerys shifted in his sleep. Mumbled something, something small and indiscernible that suspiciously formed like her name. _No,_ Joanna thought firmly. Casterly Rock awaited her, and Tywin with it. A lioness did not dismiss her own. Not even for a wicked, dashing dragon.

She pulled the door open, ready to dismiss herself from the scrutiny of the guards standing watch. Instead, she found herself facing a svelte column of silver.

Joanna took a quiet breath, head tilted slightly up. She was tall, but the Queen stood taller.

"Your Grace," Joanna curtsied.

A subtle scent of sage and cold jewels filled the air _. She smells like Valyrian steel_ , Joanna thought, not for the first time. She was glad for the pale moonlight that streamed only through a high lancet across the hallway. Her surprise could remain a vague stroke dragged across her features, and so did her shame. Even to her own self, perhaps.

"He is in there, I presume." The Queen was not asking. There was no warmth in her eyes for the would-be answer.

"He is," Joanna replied nonetheless, no modesty or glee in her words.

Fine fabric shifted, and when Joanna lifted her gaze, the Queen had stepped to the side. Joanna took the hint, and treaded outside the chambers, quietly dragging the heavy door shut behind her.

She looked around for the guards, but found none. "You hardly need them," the Queen spoke sagaciously, sharp enough to make up for a hidden dagger.

 _Words are blades, and women wield them no worse than the Faceless Men of Braavos do theirs._

"How may I be of service?"

Even in the smokiness of the cold moonlight, the Queen's glow ran deep and chilled. She had donned a slick silk robe that caught color from its surroundings, wide-sleeved and trimmed with white fur to match the whiteness of her hair, and the bloodlessness of her long face. Joanna could not help but notice the beauty in her, the hidden intensity in her eyes, the quiet strength it took to shoulder a lifetime spent at the side of Aerys Targaryen. _I've learned a lot from her._ Surely the Queen was not to blame if the lessons had been bitter.

"You may listen carefully to what I am about to say to you," the Queen intoned, a thin smile haunting her lips for the briefest of moments, perhaps to mask the severity in her voice, perhaps to enhance it. "You were my lady-in-waiting, once. I took care of you and your every need. You repaid me by opening your bed to my husband." Joanna's gaze slipped sideways, carefully, in time to shield her pride from taking a blow. "But I've been told you are leaving all of that behind."

Joanna raised her eyebrows. _Truly nothing goes unheard in this castle._ "News travels quickly," she responded vaguely enough to test what the Queen might or might not know.

The Queen was clearly in no mood for word dances. "The Hand only weds once. Mostly."

Joanna dipped her head, recognizing her disadvantage. "I was honored by Lord Tywin's proposal. Yet more so to accept it."

Whatever shards of politeness had loitered in the Queen's eyes before, they withdrew now. "It must be exciting, being able to flit from one duty to the next, to whichever court you fancy."

Joanna lowered her head. _If only._

She recalled the first time she'd laid eyes on Aerys. _Gods, had I ever seen such a man._ Slender, silver-haired and kingly, and all a dragon should be, and he'd looked at her as if her duty to the Queen did not matter, nor his. _And for a time, it didn't._ And then, like all times, that too was over. _I was as naïve as the maidens in the songs to not see what stood right before me._

The first time she'd come across another woman laid nude across his bed, she had not wept. _I had too much pride for it._ The day she'd witnessed the King sentence a man to mutilation over an ill-timed remark, that was when she'd wept in earnest. She had not only misjudged the manhood, but the man who wielded it. _I was foolish, and my sentence was a prison of my own creation._ The capitol was not a place easily fled, after all, not without good reason, and she'd found herself stranded in a city of intrigue, in the bed of a king she thought less and less of with each passing day.

Despite everything, Joanna knew enough sense not to begrudge the chain of events that had shaped her stay in King's Landing. _All I know of politics, I've learned here. I may have been foolish, once, but I've been clever since._ She had remained still as a lion stalking, awaiting her opportunity for a bloodless withdrawal.

"I fear my duty in the capitol was never one of fancy," Joanna said to the Queen, even though she knew her words would fall on deaf ears. The Queen was not to blame, either, for wanting to protect what was hers. "I imagine we are very much alike in that. Pity you won't see it."

The Queen's lip twitched in the dark. "All I see is a climber that will climb no further."

Joanna resolved to take a gamble. "I am to be the Hand's wife. Some would argue there is no higher step to climb."

"True," the Queen breathed. "For you there isn't." Deep violet eyes narrowed at Joanna, over her, as if appraising a sculpture. "You're a clever one. I missed it completely, the first day you came in. I wonder if it was there at all, back then. But no matter. The past is not what brought me here."

"Of course, Your Grace."

The Queen's lips pressed together. "The child," she sibilated. No further explanation would be given, not even here, now. "My husband likely tells you more than he tells me these days, so this should not come as a surprise. It is to leave the capitol."

'It'. Indeed, the queen had no reason to be fond of the bastard, no more than Joanna herself.

"I've heard," Joanna nodded. The Queen would not stand for a child like that to mingle with her court. "The King had very little interest in its fate before. Now he does not wish to keep it around. He speaks of a restless court."

The Queen's expression was indiscernible. "I suppose that's what happens when a King secludes himself from his subjects. Misunderstandings arise." Joanna's eyes went narrow, curious, chin tilted slantwise, a mere implication. _Has she truly?_ The Queen's face was neither a denial nor a confirmation. Her next words were less ambiguous. "You don't seem surprised."

"I wouldn't think to insult you with such," Joanna admitted with careful honesty, heedful not to prod the veil of formality that hung between them.

The Queen stared at her for a brief moment. Joanna saw weariness peek behind the steel of her gaze. _She is as tired of this dance as I am._ "So, the boy," the Queen tackled her point anew. "I wager Aerys is looking for places to send him off to. What does he tell you?"

"He tells me nothing. He has hardly mentioned it to me." And then, just to remind the Queen out there lived a sinner greater than her, "I am not the child's mother."

"No," the Queen agreed, and something about her voice made Joanna wish to back away. "But you will be."

A chill crept up Joanna's spine, sharp like flesh peeling, like gowns tearing. _She means to brand me._ Her fists bunched in her skirts, knuckles straining to ease the torrent that raided her chest. _And what of Tywin? It will be an insult to him. It will be an insult to me as well, though I could never tell a soul. My pain would be my own to carry._

"Your Grace. I ask that you reconsider."

It was folly to await mercy from the Queen, yet after all this time Joanna had at least hoped for some mutual understanding. _I paid for my offence to you._ Yet the Queen would have her keep on paying.

"You will take it back to your Rock, and all your schemes with it. I have already set arrangements in motion. Aerys will want to humiliate your betrothed, he'll see a way in this child. You will all be gone from my court. You in particular are not to set foot in this city again, under any circumstances. I have endured you this long, but this has been it for you. If you have been looking for a chance to walk away from this in one piece, this is it. I suggest you take it. I can promise you there will be no other."

 _Cleaning the slate of all pieces in a single sweep._ The Queen had done what she could in the name of her family, to protect what was hers. Joanna could respect that. Slighted as she was, she could respect it.

"…I understand."

"I have not come for your understanding, you insolent wench. I come to ask but one thing in this life of you: do not try to fox your way out. I know it to be well within your... _skill_ to make my life difficult, if nothing else. So here I am, warning you. For both our sakes, do not."

The Queen did not wait for the inevitable consent. She swept her skirts and glided away into shadow, quiet as a cat and merging with darkness far too easily for the whiteness of her. _It is a talent_ , Joanna thought, and then she could not think of much other than the fate which awaited her.

The Queen had made her move. Swiftly and with no undue delicacy, that much Joanna acknowledged. She could play the game a last time, of course, but not with Tywin in the bigger picture, not with him this close to her now. She wouldn't risk it. She wouldn't risk _him_.

The life sprawled ahead of her would not be easy if she chose to go down the route of complaisance, not that she had been delusional enough to hope for such. This was but the first of many trials, and Joanna Lannister well intended to rise above it, weather the storm with a head held high. _I can make this child my own._ She would do her duty, as all women did. _It is no different than with the man who fathered it. What the Queen is too frightened to look at, I must embrace._

Yet even as she packed her belongings in silence and sought Tywin's chamber and rested her head on a pillow for a last time in this city, Joanna dreamt of a life where she was mother to four children, yet only loved three.

* * *

266 AC

The child began to push out of her on a cloudy afternoon, whilst she was managing some twelve maids' work down in the kitchens. _It's early_ , was Joanna's first thought. _Too early._

 _It hurts_ , was her second. _By the Seven, it hurts as badly as they say._ She was not surprised, though her lack of shock did not seem to lessen the pain.

"Genna—" she managed, and added in a silent _Tywin_ , even though she knew her cousin to have made herself busy with bookkeeping or stockpiling or servant-goading somewhere aboveground, and her husband, by latest accounts, to be making headway through Hornvale still.

A convulsion overcame her, and she staggered back into a pair of hands, whom they belonged to she did not know. Joanna grew aware of the low ceiling spitting dust and grit down at her, hard stone walls pressing in, air thick, far too thick for her lungs to cough up. The square trammels of the kitchen became the most dreadful place on earth.

"Genna," she repeated, grappling for breath. "Bring me to Genna. Bring her to me."

"You need a Maester, m'lady," a voice came through, then died down like the tail of an explosion. Joanna felt herself get yanked hither and thither by alien hands. Stone steps raced under her, cold and slippery and not quite touching her feet.

In her weakened state, old words swam up in her mind, uninvited. Words she dared not repeat, words that frightened her more than anything in this world. _The horrors. Skirts of blood._ _You will be nothing to them._

Torch flames blurred, hissed and quavered in the wake of her passing. Jagged gravel flattened into carpeted corridors, and Joanna watched them bend and twist their redness all around her. _Such long bowels. I've been devoured by a snake. I'm about to die. I know it._

She grew hot, then cold many times over. Her teeth clanked with the spinning of the seasons taking place somewhere deep within her. Her lower belly was a Dornish desert at one point, then a wildlings camp a moment after. She felt herself begin to come apart, not knowing if the babe would freeze or boil to death first.

 _Two shall serve and one shall reign._ The words echoed in her head, old but not forgotten. She clung to them, unsure if they were a comfort or a madness. _Two shall serve and one shall reign._

Just as the tremors grew closer and more ravenous, Joanna felt her backside drop into a clasp of softness. _I can rest now_ , she thought, briefly, but what rest was to be had at a time like this? She found no comfort in the linens. Mollusks of silk pooled around her ankles, engulfed her arms, her hips and nape so that Joanna attempted to rise before they drowned or suffocated her.

"I need to walk," Joanna managed, how she knew that would be helpful she did not know.

They lifted her up and she circled the room for what felt like a long time. Each hair on the hearthrug was a needle, and each exhale irritated her gut. Her womb surged and relaxed intermittently, until the pains grew wild and hot and sent her tumbling to her knees.

"Be strong, my lady," Maester Creylen's voice cut through all the rest with some effort, like a dull blade plodding though butter. "It is early, that we realize, but not extremely so. I have every confidence your ladyship is going to endure this." The Maester's ghostly face swam closer, a single drop of sweat rolling between those pale bushy eyebrows, betraying a worry otherwise well-hidden. "You can handle this, my good lady, as you do all else in this strange castle. Be brave."

 _Brave_ , Joanna wondered, surprised she could think at all beyond the pain. _I'm hardly brave._ She'd never thought herself the coward, yet bravery was not the opposite of cowardice. _I am proud_. _Proud and surviving. A lioness is not brave as she stalks and hunts and kills. She is only stronger than the prey._

Her lip trembled and her eyes watered. _I do fear this. And I well intend to survive it._

Joanna grabbed on to Maester Creylen's arm, and roared.

* * *

 _A girl._ Joanna sank back in the pillows as Cersei cried in the arms of the wet nurse. Congratulations rained down, kind and insincere. She wondered if the joy may have been fuller had she died giving birth to an heir. _Not for Tywin._ The thought warmed her.

"Give her to me." Joanna spread out her arms, doing her best to calm the shake in her blanched fingers. Stale sweat crawled up and down her skin, cold and slick. Stray wisps of matted hair trickled down her face. Her thighs slipped on a film of dark nether blood. _The Stranger's breath came close_ , Joanna thought, and shuddered. "Hand me my daughter," she repeated when the wet nurse hesitated near the bedpost.

Cersei toppled into her arms in a warm pink bundle. She looked up at her mother with Tywin's eyes, and hers. _A lion's eyes_. The crying ceased, and Joanna smiled down at her daughter, overwhelmed by a fierce sort of tenderness that commanded her never to let another touch her little one. _Motherhood is a devastating, jealous love. I must take care not to suffocate her with it._

"Send word to my lord husband," Joanna spoke, not daring to take her eyes off the babe. Her strength was linked to this little creature, now, and she could feel her energy oddly replenish with each passing heartbeat that she held on to her. "Inform him he is now a father." _There is time for sons_ , she decided. _Genna spoke right. A daughter is to be loved._ She watched Cersei's tiny feet kick up in the air, and laughed gently. _Who knows? Perhaps this_ **_is_** _to be the son we wished for._

Hushed whispers carried off her gaze sideward. A short little thing, black and gangly in the backlight, was trying to fit through the doorframe. It was held back by a tangle of hands for a time, but found a way through under a larger servant's stretched arm.

"Raemon," Joanna managed thinly as the blackness swam back up on the inside of the chamber, red hair ruffled and unshorn. "Where did you come from?"

The boy nodded towards where Cersei rested, standing up on tiptoes, neck craned as if to see better. Joanna's grip on Cersei tightened instinctively. "Did she come out already?" the boy asked curiously. A pang of guilt surged through her at the cold response that coiled at her lips. _He is only a child._

And yet, every time he looked at her with those terribly mismatched eyes, it was as if he _remembered._

It wasn't possible, of course. _He was a babe, just a babe,_ Joanna told herself over and over, and every time the words failed to fully put her mind off the unsettling thought.

Joanna swallowed, aware of the sudden silence and the many eyes. She could not show what she felt in front of them. "She did, just now." She eyed the people around her, then. _He knows it's a daughter._ _News already traveled the castle?_

The boy frowned, a strange look upon his face. "What about _him_?"

Joanna narrowed her eyes, slowly. An eternity stretched between them, until something, something drew a razor over her belly, and suddenly she felt it come to life again. She gasped, sharp and sudden. In her arms, Cersei thrashed and screamed. With a blink she flew out of Joanna's arms, snatched by a pair of bony, ownerless hands. _No_ , Joanna thought frantically. _Return her to me. If I'm to die, I owe her as much of me as I can give her._

The cramping surged through her anew and she fell back into her silken hell. Some fresh liquid spurted from between her thighs, and she felt her legs kick against it. She was only vaguely aware of passing shadows draping over her at different times, telling her things that never quite reached her. _What is happening to me?_ Joanna wondered, fleetingly. _I thought I had survived it._

 _Two shall serve and one shall reign._ _Two shall serve and one shall reign._

How she wished for Tywin to be there, next to her. "Focus, my lady!" Something collided with her cheek lightly and she blinked, in her throes, suddenly aware of her husband's name, not just in her mind but quite real on her tongue. _I never knew his name to taste so strangely…_ She strained her ears, and listened for those things that were a mindless buzz around her.

 _Not strong enough…_

 _Much bleeding…_

 _There is a second one…_

 _Pray for your brother, Cersei,_ Joanna thought, for she knew what was about to push out of her could only be a warrior. _Pray now and pray well, for your mother will need every bit of it._

"Push now, my lady!"

Her fingers sought the curve of Maester Creylen's arm once more. She could hear his muffled voice resound somewhere far away, too far away. Joanna twitched and writhed, smelling more blood. Her hand flailed helplessly, until something, something cold and slippery snuck into her palm, twined itself between her fingers.

She was too hysterical to think of what she felt. He was there, a comfort, and she held on to him. She let the boy hold her throughout her wrestle with the life inside her, squeezing at the little hand as hard as she would at Tywin's. At some point he must have leant in, and Joanna almost feared he might kiss her. But his lips missed her cheek and went for her ear.

"Don't worry. If you die, I promise I'll take good care of them."

Mismatched eyes drifted before her, green and purple, twisting buried memories back to life. The ends of his hair smothered her, forcing the smell of something burning down her throat. _It's so red now, gods be good, as red as **hers** …_

Joanna froze, then smoldered, then dreamed of red.

* * *

263 AC

King's Landing was sparsely lit during the Hour of the Wolf. The brightest lights welled out from the foggy windowpanes of the whorehouses, and the Red Keep itself, which pillared behind her like some vain bright garland.

Joanna's eyes wandered up. The sky was black and moonless, and sounded like high winds. If there were clouds crowded upon it, they were as black as all the rest, and one would only know of them if they cast down rain or thunder. _It's cold._ Joanna shrank into her rough patchy sealskin, ever glad for the plain brown traveler's cloak pressing down on her shoulders. Even so, she felt exposed. Could not help looking about for the slightest of unforeseen movement.

"Stay low, ladiness," the sellsword beside her urged. "Tis ain't no maidens' garden." _I should hope so_ , Joanna thought dryly. Her departure with Tywin was due on the morrow. She would not risk a discovery. _Why_ **am** _I risking it?_

The truth was she could not help herself. She needed to take a look at the child before they thrust it upon her lap as though it rightfully belonged there. One look, and she would know. _I need to see for myself if I can be a mother to him. If I have it in me to do as the Queen wishes._

The array of establishments on either side of the narrow pathway slowly folded away to expose Rhaenys' Hill. Joanna's gaze roamed up its seven-pointed crown, its whites muted by the nightly shade. "Wait here," she ordered the hired blade, slipping some of the coin into his expecting palm.

"How long?" the man wanted to know. Joanna stole an oblique glance at him. Frowning, tall and muscle-studded, with wide-meshed teeth that were sometimes missing altogether, the man stood clad in leather and as dark as the city he ranged on a nightly basis. He bore all the scars Genna had told her about, and more. _A true mercenary._ Perhaps a bit _too_ true.

"You've been hired for the night, yes?"

The sellsword crossed his arms. Even his leather sounded peeved. "But only paid for half."

"So wait half the night," Joanna advised with an inclination of her head that could have meant anything, and swept her skirts.

She had not climbed the steps of the Great Sept since she had last accompanied the Queen on a prayer, and that had been some time ago. _I'd forgotten how many there were._ She pulled the cowl lower over her eyes and climbed further. The night was no time to take rest. Not for those with secrets to manage, anyway.

As soon as she reached the top, she was met by the faded bulk of a roving septa. Shadows played strangely off the planes of the knifelike face, the swaying lantern less yellow and more green. "What seek you here at this hour?" the septa asked.

"Purgation," Joanna intoned, lending her voice the necessary tinge of lament. "Repentance. The presence of the Seven." And let the septa make of that what she will.

"Well received, then. The Mother's altar stands reachable to sinners at all times."

The septa's face was gone back in the cowl long before the lantern had lost itself in the nightly mist.

Joanna treaded into the Great Sept, this high temple of naked crystal and white granite gods. No Kingsguard stood to defend its honor, no house-bound knights protected its riches, and no brothers of the Nightswatch took oaths to patrol its edge. The treasure vaults were kept locked and sealed, and surely there lived no man foolish enough to think the Red Keep would pay half a coin's ransom for the snoring High Septon.

Finding the altar of the Mother was no difficult task. It was there, at the feet of a great pale statue, one of seven, fresh and old candles asmolder at the footing of hard stone skirts that would never shuffle. It was finding her way beyond it that proved some challenge. Past the main sanctum chamber the flickering lights grew weaker and rarer. The sole ribbon of light wound up a narrow staircase which would be difficult to spot in the half-dark had Joanna not busied herself with interior maps earlier. It was quite easy to tell most of the Great Sept slumbered unlit, undisturbed. Joanna did not fancy losing her way in these uncharted, strange halls.

Her step was quick and light, measured. She wondered if this was what assassins felt like on their nightly errands. If with time it grew easier to become one with the silence, the murk. _Perhaps for some._ She thought of the Queen, how fluently Rhaella Targaryen would vanish around the castle and breeze in on strange places during stranger hours, how well she truly ought to know the formulas of her domain. Joanna only prayed Casterly Rock would prove as good a friend to her as the Red Keep was to its mistress.

The chamber she was looking for had to be located on an upper storage, a septa's cell with a dragon carved lid upon the grate. The moonlit staircase was narrow, twisting and slippery. Had a septa walked down her path, there would have been little place to hide. Joanna's eyes searched the dark. She was growing less certain with each passing door, but this was no time to rethink.

After a time, as she was losing track of her steps and the doors and the hour, it finally swam out of the darkness. A small dragon carving sunken in the wood. A shaky breath escaped her. Whoever had done the cutting must have had better things to do, for they had clearly made a quick work of it. Sadness pierced Joanna, unbidden. _Bastards only ever get half-honors, and that is if they are lucky._

She made for the knob, then stopped. Her hand shook under the heavy cloak. Dove into an inner pocket, thumbing the cold edge of the stiff-bladed dagger. Dark thoughts circled her mind. She tossed her head clear of them. She had not come for that. She was yet to see, yet to know.

With an exhale she pushed in. The old hinges moaned their shifting. Cold air wheezed past her, out of the room, as if it had awaited the opportunity. The threshold crawled under her feet, creaking, and then all grew silent.

Redness was the first thing to meet Joanna's searching eyes. Not the muted maroons of silk and cotton, nor the liquid wines swirling the bottom of a chalice. No, before her rose a blood-filled hourglass, flowing up into womanly shapes.

"You're not the wet nurse," Joanna spoke cautiously.

The woman turned, slowly, as if she had been expecting the visit. Joanna's eyes went wide, heedful.

"Nay. That much we have in common."

Her voice was deep and thick, and almost did not sound like the common tongue. Her hair was as red as her gown, and the candle flames threw specks in her eyes that were redder than either. A red-gold choker set with a large ruby rested about her throat, light bouncing off the precious stone in fickle glints. Something about the woman made Joanna think of serpents, great, wise and glacial.

Just then she took notice of the babe nestled in the woman's arms, mouth pressed to her bared chest. "I am visiting—"

"The wrong place." There was no ill will in the foreign voice, no malice in those bright red eyes. Only a deep understanding, one that did not bode a great deal of kindness, either. "Go home. The answers you seek are not in this room."

Joanna shivered, feeling nude. Her nails went into the meat of her palm, steadying her. "I seek but a glimpse of this—this infant. For better or worse, my future is bound to him." The truth was not a luxury she could normally afford, yet for some reason, under this woman's strange gaze, it felt like her only option.

A cryptic smile played across the woman's dark red lips. "Your future… A shorter story than you think, that. I could tell you. Or you may leave now and not come back. The choice is yours."

Joanna narrowed her eyes, _knowing,_ even if she had no evidence to shoulder her presumption. "I've heard of women like you. I am surprised you have strayed so far from home." Asshai was a long way east, yet hardly a child in the Seven Kingdoms had grown far removed from tales of its pale, copper-haired priestesses.

"You know nothing of home, lion. Mine or yours. R'hllor had only blood for me. I abandoned him long ago."

The babe made a sound and shifted, suckling on the woman's breast. Joanna's lip twitched disloyally. "So you sought haven in the arms of a foreign king?"

The woman's full lips pulled back like a curtain. No sound of mirth left her throat. "Your jealousy is misplaced, if rather dear. I am no concubine. The child was always my destiny. It is R'hllor's way of reminding me we were all cast into the inevitable, the day we were born. Flee as I might I fulfilled my role in the end. I bore light from darkness and darkness from light."

Joanna combated a frown. Kept her voice formal, unbending. "I do not know the things you speak of. I reckon it is not my place to know. If you do not mind, I should like to see him. Will you not grant me this little kindness?"

The candles quivered to a wind Joanna did not sense, and she swore the ruby at the woman's throat shone brighter.

"Fine. I grant you a look. But you said yourself: the child is your future, and your future is in that child. You cannot look at one and go blind to the other. I ask again. Will you look, or will you walk? Your choice."

Joanna cast the woman a skeptical eye. Then she outstretched her arms. _I did not risk the way here for nothing._ "Let me have him."

A shadow darted across the priestess' long pale face. "Greedy. All your lot. Here. Have at it."

The creature tipped over into her hold. It was not like holding other children. Whether that was a good thing or a bad one, she was yet to know. She risked a peek into those unfocused round eyes. Jade and amethyst stared back at her, one bitingly reminiscent of Aerys, the other foreign as the woman who had borne the boy.

 _You could have been mine._ Would that have been more or less of a nightmare? Joanna did not know.

The babe gave a small whine. Petite hands groped the ends of her golden strands. Plushy lips nipped around the lace of her bodice, pressing for entrance. Joanna held her breath.

A thin whimper told her it hadn't found the thing it had probed for. Gingerly, she offered the bundle back to the eastern woman. "Here. I… I expect he needs his mother."

A sure palm rested atop her own, ringed fingers clanking against the gold of her bracelets. "I realize that they are taking him away, lion." Joanna noticed her nails were also painted scarlet, crooked long and sharp towards the flesh. Her skin bore ink markings too small and too countless to interpret. While her flesh was cool to the touch, her many rings slid warm against her wrist.

Joanna averted her gaze. Repercussions of the Queen's decision beyond her own family had not been much on her mind until now. "I had no part in it," she muttered quietly. This woman had to know.

"Oh, but you have all the part in it." Joanna's brows arched in question. The foreign woman released a light chuckle. "You misunderstand. I am not bitter. The child was never meant to remain by my side. I have done His bidding. I can go in peace now."

Joanna's face fell. She did her best to conceal the emotion, yet the red woman's head fell to the side, adopting a curious look. Her eyes had gone wide and clever. Her hair slanted the slope of her shoulders in wild tresses that seemed to curl in towards the gemstone on her neck.

"You are _judgmental_ ," the woman breathed. "How little you understand. You shall do much worse than me. Just you wait. The lion-ring shan't save you. You are to while away your days fleeing a shadow that's winged and crowned. But you are doomed to fail. Worse you shall do, for the sake of that which is yet to come. Ah, but therein lies your tragedy. For that very thing is bound to the dragons you run from."

Joanna's heart skipped a beat. Her feet itched to back away, yet she drew closer, eyes trained on the foreign woman. "You speak of my children. That is what you mean, is it not? What of them?"

" _When you play the game of thrones you win or you die,"_ the woman crooned in an alien voice. "You will be nothing to them. Those cubs, they are marked for it. They're made for the dragons, and the dragons are made for them. Two shall serve and one shall reign. Oh, the horrors they'll witness. The horrors they'll cause! All shall reunite over a golden grave long after you've donned skirts of blood. _You shan't know your flesh and blood for the shape it shall take._ "

The smell of something burning singed Joanna's throat. At the tip of their staves, the torch flames danced wildly. The room filled with quick, jumping shadows. _I've heard too much._ She thrust the child into the woman's arms, but the priestess stepped deftly to the side, sweeping her red skirts along. "I've heard enough," Joanna murmured. "Here, take it, take it back. Take it, I give it back to you."

The woman growled. Slithered a flat smirk through crooked lips. All of a sudden, she appeared much older, lips gone bloated like a marsh frog, teeth yellowed, elderly wrinkles creasing the skin around her glazed eyes. _They are green,_ Joanna realized. It must have been the torchlight tinting them, for now they oozed the same poisonous shade as the boy's. Joanna backed away, mouth wide agape. In her arms, the child wailed.

"You think you are the first to try this?" the woman chanted. "Can you unspill wine? Can you make a river flow upwards? Can you send lightning back into a storm? The night is dark and full of terrors. You chose this and so you shall hear it, for you have made it a fate for you and me."

Even the voice had grown deeper, darker, full of hatred. Joanna shook her head and clutched the stonework on the wall as she let her back hit the hardwood door. Her golden locks caught in jutting, rusty nails. Her jaw clenched tight as a vice.

"You are a witch," she breathed lowly. "You word poison. Take your infant and let me be on my way this instant."

If the woman had appeared aged before, she was now a crone. Her teeth spilled to the floor on a terrible string of muted raps. The ruby on her choker burst to pieces, and the pieces soon joined the teeth. The witch's hands went scratching at her throat though they only seemed to feel for the gemstone. She spoke some words in a tongue Joanna did not recognize, then lunged at her.

Joanna gasped and made to cover herself, but then she remembered the child was still in her hold. She looked down only to find her clutch empty. "Where…" she began to ask, only for the witch to shove her down to the ground with strength that went beyond her feeble body.

"Foolish girl! I warned you, you would not listen. Now you will sit here and take it!" She was pacing the room before long, gangly arms flailing about as though she were a madwoman talking to herself. "Nothing will be as it seems. Not for you, not for your kin. Lies, lies and treachery. Wretched love. So much pride and blood! Beware the dragon, the two-colored one. You won't know to fear him, but should you do! Oh, but I am saying too much!" Sick laughter chilled Joanna's bones. "Perhaps I'm afraid, too. I thought I'd be ready, you see, after all this time. But look at me, raving to you like a mad bitch. No, no, we're all fashioned to fear the unknown, are we not? Is that why you fear the dragons so much? Is it? How about this, then: a dragon shall stand watch over your offspring, and a dragon shall snatch the life from you!"

Joanna blanched. The words resounded deep in her bones, like the bedtime tales of her childhood, magical and terrifying in their vagueness. _I am cursed. My children are cursed. What have I done?_

The witch was doubled over with laughter and pointing feebly with a shaky finger. She had begun to sing, Joanna realized faintly, a shrill, ululating tune like a piglet screaming.

Detachedly, Joanna listened to her own voice pleading. _Shut your mouth, I beg of you._ _I do not wish to hear more. Stop it._ _STOP._ The woman did not listen. Perhaps Joanna did not hear.

In some horrible dream she saw herself reach into her ruffled cloak. Watched herself skewer her dagger, her hidden, untried dagger, through a stream of redness— _nothing_ should be this red, she reckoned, and yet it _all_ was. She saw her fist tangle into that same globe of red—so many threads bunched, so many knots to untwist—bash the woman's head into the Mother's chapel, as if to silence this terrible future from coming to pass.

 _I never knew death could be this messy._

Her knees caved in and she slumped against the wall, slick and breathless, spent as a corpse.

 _I know what happened. She bewitched me. She bewitched me to kill her._

Red arms wormed up and down the walls, the ceiling. The hard floor slid sticky underfoot, drenched her skirts and arse. Her ears told her there had to be noise, a buzzing of sorts, yet nothing inched past the thrumming in her head, the dragon shrieks of her breath.

Her gaze skidded to the babe sitting in the crib next to her, painted in the witch's blood, laughing, same, worse than the mother. It sounded so very wrong. _You should be crying. Screaming. Don't laugh. Don't laugh._ The laughter was somehow that much worse than any scream could ever be. The candle light swirled horribly in his eyes.

 _Beware the dragon, the two-colored one._ Joanna looked into those pale, mismatched eyes, and suddenly, she was staring straight into her doom.

She crawled on all fours up to the crib. Pulled herself up, remembering the knife in her trembling clutch. Angled it down towards the laughing babe, still drenched in the blood of its mother. All was still save for her uneven breathing. The babe reached for her, then. Reached past the blade, past her shaking hands. Caught her matted hair in its tiny fingers and tugged. Gave a feisty roar, hiccuped, and burst out laughing again. He had such a thin little voice. Her doom had such small, puffy fingers.

Joanna stilled. Backed away. The blade fell to the side with a dull clank. _I cannot do this. The Seven help me, I cannot do this._

She fingered for the dagger. Shoved it back up her skirts and stood up on wobbly feet. Swept the bloodied hair from her face. _You might be the death of me, small one,_ she thought shakily. _But I cannot be the death of you._

And then Joanna Lannister ran as far as her feet would take her, although she knew in her heart this was a night she'd be running from until the day she died.

* * *

 **I realize it's been ages since I first posted this story, but, uh... we all know how life can get. I've had this chapter collecting dust on my laptop for a while now and I finally gathered the willpower to give it a little edit. So here it is, I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for the support on last chapter! All the feedback and the faves and the views really helped me push through with this second chapter. I want to say I really like the premise of this story, and it's the one most likely for me to continue. With the final season of GoT just months away I might get inspired to develop it further. In the meantime, thanks for reading, as usual. Comments make my day! Ciao.**


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